Just how long should players expect a game to remain fresh and exciting? Do publishers have to treat all AAA games as services that keep us constantly entertained for years or even decades? Have MMOs trained us to feel entitled to games that never actually end? These are the questions that have been circling my head after reading Blizzard's response to player complaints about the lack of compelling "endgame" content in Diablo III.

In a massive thread on the official Blizzard forums, user Slicktorine leads things off by saying that after putting 350 hours into Diablo III, he's starting to get bored. Seriously. After putting in enough time to easily beat the game on all four difficulty levels with all five character classes, traverse every corner of the map both with and without friends, and most likely master the one-death-and-you're-done Hardcore mode, Diablo III is finally starting to lose its luster for him. Apparently, Slicktorine and many others commenting on the thread were expecting better than a six-cent-per-hour return on their $60 investment in the game.

To be fair, the thread contains some legitimate complaints about how Diablo III's endgame compares to that of Diablo II. The relative scarcity of interesting, unique item drops in the game's last act, along with the level 60 progression cap, makes farming for items and experience after the game is done a little pointless. Then again, this kind of farming was always a somewhat pointless way to satisfy the "look at the numbers go up" itch and make an already completed game just a little easier to complete. I'm more sympathetic to the demands for some sort of super-challenging endgame dungeon full of elite enemies, even though I think Hardcore mode should already provide a significant enough challenge for most players.

It's not the specific complaints that get to me, though, so much as the sense players seem to feel that the game owes them more than it has already given. "I played this game nonstop for the first month, and in the last two weeks I've played once," writes one angry commenter, who apparently believes a month of nonstop play was not enough to expect from the game. Another complains that "right now at 500+ hours played, the Time+reward is crap unless you use the AH to buy ALL YOUR GEAR." I'm sorry, but expecting a game to remain just as rewarding after playing for over 500 hours is a bit much. Even timeless games like chess and poker start to get a little less interesting after investing that much time and attention. I understand that you never want the thrill of clicking on enemies and getting cool new items for your guy to end, but there are other experiences out there to enjoy...

They're working on it

Blizzard, to its credit, seems to be a bit more sympathetic to these kinds of complaints than I am. In a surprisingly forthright reply on the thread, Community Manager Bashiok admits that simply farming new items from enemies is "just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game." Bashiok also admits the development team expected the item hunt to keep players engaged for much longer than it has.

But he also notes, "Honestly, Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months." The comparison to World of Warcraft is an interesting one, and one that I think gets to the expectations some people had for Diablo III. Former Blizzard employee and current CEO of Torchlight developer Runic Games Max Schaefer has said that Diablo III was originally being developed as an MMO, or "the Diablo version of World of Warcraft," as he put it.

Even though you can play through Diablo III just fine on your own, features like consistent characters stored on Blizzard servers and centrally controlled auction houses do make the game feel a little bit more like an MMO than a standard single-player RPG. Unfortunately, that feeling doesn't extend to the content, which is much more discrete than the constantly changing and expanding worlds of most massively multiplayer games.

But World of Warcraft players invest a monthly fee into the creation of that constant new content. For Diablo III, the continuing revenue stream is a little less direct, coming through players selling items in the real-money auction house. If Blizzard wants players to keep selling those items, it has to invest in creating new content that keeps players interested in collecting them.

And that's just what the company is doing. Bashiok says he hopes further tweaks and gameplay changes in an upcoming update, as well as a long-awaited player-vs-player mode, will "get [players] excited about playing" again. But he admits that these changes are "not going to be a real end-game solution." For that, the development team has ideas for a "progression system" that will keep the game compelling for much longer, but the release of such a "massive feature" is "a ways out."

As Bashiok notes, "there needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now." Creating that "something else" would be in the interests of both Blizzard and Diablo III players, for sure. But that doesn't mean you can't be content with the vast amount of satisfying gameplay and content you can get out of Diablo III as it currently exists. As one commenter succinctly puts it, "They released a game that is fun or a month+ and is worth $60. So, take a break dumb kids, until they release new content."

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Just an opinion here as an aging gamer who no longer gets obsessed over any one game: it seems evident that children and teens get addicted to games much, much easier than adults. I think a large part of the "problem" of Diablo III is all the people who played Diablo II when they were 14 and DIII just doesn't seem to have the same addictive luster. They think it's the game that changed, but really it's them...

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People don't generally expect it to last forever, but it's the worst in the series for replay fun. I don't see that as a good thing. In my case I got bored way faster then these people and didn't get through more then one clear before I was done. I got nowhere near my monies worth.

For Blizzard it's also a problem. To keep people using the RMAH, they have to keep people playing. Bored players are bad for revenue.

Just an opinion here as an aging gamer who no longer gets obsessed over any one game: it seems evident that children and teens get addicted to games much, much easier than adults. I think a large part of the "problem" of Diablo III is all the people who played Diablo II when they were 14 and DIII just doesn't seem to have the same addictive luster. They think it's the game that changed, but really it's them...

Blizzard, to its credit, seems to be a bit more sympathetic to these kinds of complaints than I am.

And...why is this to its credit?

If the people complaining about this are entitled twits who don't remember what non-MMO gaming is really like (which really is what it sounds like), why is it a good thing that Blizzard is taking them seriously?

Just an opinion here as an aging gamer who no longer gets obsessed over any one game: it seems evident that children and teens get addicted to games much, much easier than adults. I think a large part of the "problem" of Diablo III is all the people who played Diablo II when they were 14 and DIII just doesn't seem to have the same addictive luster. They think it's the game that changed, but really it's them...

*puts down Pokemon Silver with a sad sigh and goes back to work*

For me, its the lack of a skill tree system. I invest time once and I'll have access to every possible build of that character type.

The game feels tailored to casuals, as recent World of Warcraft is compared to vanilla.

Just an opinion here as an aging gamer who no longer gets obsessed over any one game: it seems evident that children and teens get addicted to games much, much easier than adults. I think a large part of the "problem" of Diablo III is all the people who played Diablo II when they were 14 and DIII just doesn't seem to have the same addictive luster. They think it's the game that changed, but really it's them...

*puts down Pokemon Silver with a sad sigh and goes back to work*

My thoughts exactly. I've realized that in myself of late. The gameplay that once excited me as a teenager bores me too easily these days. I spent countless hours on Diablo II. After playing through and beating Nightmare mode on my Monk in Diablo III, I just couldn't push myself to keep going. I realized it's not the games that have changed, it's just my taste in them. It's the same reason I would play Starcraft/Brood Wars for hours upon hours, and when Starcraft II released I played it about 2 weeks and then put it down and never went back to it.

Perhaps if you didn't sit at your PC playing D3 for 8 hours (OR MORE...SRSLY?!) per day, you wouldn't finish the thing three weeks after release, in turn not giving yourself the (rather irrational) feeling as though the game is short.

I play D3 at most about 4 hours per week. Now, I understand that I'm a casual gamer and nowhere near the average user, but Christ on a Stick® some of these gamers are in need of some sort of social life outside of what you can find on the IntArwebz. This all kind of reminds me of the commercial with the hipster bashing her parents for being anti-social because of their low friend count on The Book of Faces, meanwhile they're out and about OUTSIDE (oh, the horror) having the time of their lives with a ton of others partying on a beach.

Get out. Step away from the keyboard. There's more to life than beating D3 in three weeks and complaining about it. Besides there is a 99.999% chance that there will be at least one expansion pack (to which I'm 100% positive there will be much consternation and hang-wringing from the gamer elite for some reason or another).

People expecting this kind of content from a game, and then wanting more, is frankly ridiculous. These guys are a dying breed, constantly trying to justify to their publisher why they need to spend so much time, and put so much content into a game, to be sold at €60, when they can sell Call of Duty, the content in which lasts about 10 hours, for the same price. You're getting more hours per money than any other form of entertainment, and you want more?

Just an opinion here as an aging gamer who no longer gets obsessed over any one game: it seems evident that children and teens get addicted to games much, much easier than adults. I think a large part of the "problem" of Diablo III is all the people who played Diablo II when they were 14 and DIII just doesn't seem to have the same addictive luster. They think it's the game that changed, but really it's them...

*puts down Pokemon Silver with a sad sigh and goes back to work*

There is certainly truth to this. Now that I am in my 40s, I do not spend near the same amount of time playing games as I used to...there is no way I could and maintain my lifestyle.

However, I still do play D1 and D2 and enjoy them (as well as other games as time permits)...D3 feels lackluster and incomplete by comparison. Even my non-gamer wife prefers the item hunt in D2 and is getting bored with D3.

Just an opinion here as an aging gamer who no longer gets obsessed over any one game: it seems evident that children and teens get addicted to games much, much easier than adults. I think a large part of the "problem" of Diablo III is all the people who played Diablo II when they were 14 and DIII just doesn't seem to have the same addictive luster. They think it's the game that changed, but really it's them...

That can be an issue, but it's not for the kind of people who have already put in 300+ hours into D3. D3 is demonstrably deficient compared to D2. It has a level cap, it's all about the gear, and the AH makes gearing trivial if you have time or money. It doesn't have to have a WoW style endgame, but it definitely should have had a D2 style endgame. That's not my thing, I would rather bang my head against my desk than do the same boss run 1000 times, but it's what the Diablo players reasonably wanted and expected, and they didn't get it.

Honestly, the whole thing feels half-finished and more like a proof of concept for a RMAH than a major AAA game.

People expecting this kind of content from a game, and then wanting more, is frankly ridiculous. These guys are a dying breed, constantly trying to justify to their publisher why they need to spend so much time, and put so much content into a game, to be sold at €60, when they can sell Call of Duty, the content in which lasts about 10 hours, for the same price. You're getting more hours per money than any other form of entertainment, and you want more?

I dunno about if it's changed much. I think it's the way games are designed. Some games I can still enjoy as I did when I was 14.

Like with FPS games. I've played through the Dooms and Quakes and everyone who's played them knows that it starts you out in a spot and says "go find what you're supposed to do." Now FPS and TPS games, like Space Marine (sadly as I love W40K), have you kill everything in the room and then give you a giant arrow through the next set of corridors to the next room to kill more.

I haven't played Diablo III yet, but the second game still entertains me. This kind of entitlement is ridiculous. "I only got 400 hours out of Fruit Ninja!"

Brutal item drops is what kills it for me. You have maybe a good piece in 5-10 hours of play, that you probably can't use and have to put on the AH. I have to run one part 5 times to get a decent piece, the quality of the items that drop are weaker than what they should be if they followed the random quality drop from 1-59 levels. They are trying to make the game last too long and the grind is painful. Gohm is now unbeatable except for extreme dps classes, something that was changed when they were upping the drop rate and decreasing the quality of drops, something that could have been fixed but alas...I guess it was intentional.

To give a clue to how bad it is...an excellent piece will sell for 25-250 million gold. A good piece will get you 1-10 million. Stuff you pick up randomly is normally worth a million in a 10 hours of grind. In order for some classes to progress (melee), you need above your station gear worth 10-25 million to really make things insanely painful. Unless you buy it on the AH when gold is going for like $20 for 10 million gold, or $20 for a hundred hours of grind. See the complaint? And it's not really possible to progress unless you grind into stupidity or purchase gold.

Frustrated by Diablo 3, I reinstalled Diablo 2 last weekend and have been having a blast. Obviously the graphics aren't as good, and there are plenty of annoyances in the gameplay that Diablo 3 fixed (lousy inventory management, lack of shared aStash, and annoying corpse runs after dying come immediately to mind), but on the whole Diablo 2 is more fun. The reason, I truly believe, is the items are more interesting.

In Diablo 3 an item's effectiveness boils down to its DPS and whether it has one or two other stats in abundance.

In Diablo 2 many more factors go into determining an item's worth and it makes more a more interesting experience. It's my opinion that Diablo 3 will never have the replay-ability of its predecessor until it gets the items right.

Am I doing the math right? The guy cited as complaining that he's starting to get bored after 350 hours of game play has averaged almost 7 hours of "play" a day? That's assuming he bought it on the May 15 launch day. Sorry, sympathy dried up after that calculation. Perhaps if that person had spread out his play time a bit, he might have savored the experience more. And, you know, lived life a bit more.

The older you get the less frequently and likely you are to find yourself really wrapped up in something that's not actually work-related.

Things I've quit over the last five years, roughly in order of the difficulty:

1. Cigarettes (3 months now cold turkey, desperately craving a smoke)2. Soda (I admit this one was craaaazy hard but after having spent so much time outside of the U.S. and coming back to canned corn syrup it was slightly easier than cigarettes)3. Alcohol (This really just took some introspection and a few really bad experiences waking up in strange places -- like the African Serengeti -- to decide to put the bottle down)4. WoW (I stopped playing WoW when I realized I had scheduled my day around it. I mean the second I realized that.)

I see the announcements for these new MMOs and I just shrug mightily. SWTOR drew me in as a long time Star Wars fan and spit me right back out after a couple of months of disappointment.

I still enjoy gaming, but I prefer the short, sterile experiences (Max Payne 3, Assassin's Creed series) over the "infinitely replayable!!1!1" games. That said, I do enjoy Crusader Kings II a lot and I constantly return to Master of Magic.

EDIT: Yes, that Master of Magic. Released in 1994. Still playing it. $20 when I bought it. Almost 20 years ago. Quite possibly the best dollar-for-hour value of my entire life.

Come back and re-write this after spending years playing and enjoying both D1 and D2 and then getting bored with D3 after a month, Kyle.

You nailed it right there. I've been playing D1+D2 since each came out and still love them to death. I could pickup either of them right now and start playing and having a great time.

D3...I could barely...BARELYYYYY...get through my first play through. My friends keep saying "just rush through it so we can do Inferno farming...it gets better then". No...just no. I good people am not a farmer. I play my games to have fun. Blizzard has lost sight of what fun is in their quest to make the RMAH their cash cow.

My thoughts exactly. I've realized that in myself of late. The gameplay that once excited me as a teenager bores me too easily these days. I spent countless hours on Diablo II. After playing through and beating Nightmare mode on my Monk in Diablo III, I just couldn't push myself to keep going. I realized it's not the games that have changed, it's just my taste in them. It's the same reason I would play Starcraft/Brood Wars for hours upon hours, and when Starcraft II released I played it about 2 weeks and then put it down and never went back to it.

As my first video game, Pong offered a never ending source of entertainment. I just bought Diablo III and I'm a casual player now. I don't expect the game to go on forever. If I want that type of game, I'll just go play Star Wars: the Old Republic or World of Warcraft.

I think video game manufacturers are spending too much time catering to the vocal minority and ruining their games because of it. It has been my experience that when gamers like something, they stay quiet about it.

I also hate the idea that the single player game I bought yesterday might change and become something entirely different tomorrow.

Brutal item drops is what kills it for me. You have maybe a good piece in 5-10 hours of play, that you probably can't use and have to put on the AH. I have to run one part 5 times to get a decent piece, the quality of the items that drop are weaker than what they should be if they followed the random quality drop from 1-59 levels. They are trying to make the game last too long and the grind is painful. Gohm is now unbeatable except for extreme dps classes, something that was changed when they were upping the drop rate and decreasing the quality of drops, something that could have been fixed but alas...I guess it was intentional.

If the drop rate of good equipment was raised to the point where you could gear yourself up, it would absolutely flood the AH with great stuff and the prices would crash to nothing. There are too many people playing for anything else to happen. If it were like in D2 where gear was important but not that important, and your level provided the majority of your stats,there would be a decent progression.

It was the skill tree that created the requirement to make character-defining choices, and have, not truly theoretical "uniqueness" across all players, but at least differentiation between "your" character and "your friend's" character, or between one of your characters of the same class and another.

My probably-overly cynical thought here is that this was done for the express purpose of making only gear ultimately meaningful as a differentiator, and it's gear, not skill choices, that Activision (I'll credit them with D3, credit to "Blizzard" I'll reserve for D1 and D2) gets a real-money cut of. In any case, this is my primary source of displeasure with the game, which in itself overshadows the improvements in graphics, character voicing-and-interaction enhancements, and cutscene prettiness.

Am I doing the math right? The guy cited as complaining that he's starting to get bored after 350 hours of game play has averaged almost 7 hours of "play" a day? That's assuming he bought it on the May 15 launch day. Sorry, sympathy dried up after that calculation. Perhaps if that person had spread out his play time a bit, he might have savored the experience more. And, you know, lived life a bit more.

An average of seven hours a day is not unusual. Plenty of people that post here clock that in different games. The issue isn't how much he played, but that D2 could support that, and D3 can't.

I never finished Diablo II so I don't really get it... can someone explain why Item farming is "farming" but XP farming is not farming? I'm guessing that Diablo II didn't have a level cap and that you kept on getting stronger until all the content was trivial? Was it the reassurance that every kill meant something if you got XP from it?

I don't ever intend to play Diablo III for a decade and the game's been worth my $60 of entertainment even after 30 hours but I'm curious about why Diablo II's "endgame" was better than Diablo III's.

Has the author even researched Blizzard's marketing campaign for this game? They pretty much touted it as an MMARPG with numerous character builds along with an AH and RMAH for ever lasting fun. Listen to interviews and watch the video's about the great re-playability. They can only blame themselves how this turned out. I actually like the game so I don't have this sense of entitlement people like blindly throwing around...

I threw myself at Inferno Azmodan for a while before I realized I was no longer having fun.

I've been trying to scratch the itch for a while, and I don't know what's going to do it. I enjoy the item drop system in the Diablo series and in Torchlight; I enjoy the item crafting system in Spiral Knights but the drop system is horrible; I still liked WoW when I finally quit it but I refuse to plan my day around a game.

Maybe it's wishful thinking to imagine a game that's perfectly enjoyable and still makes money for the developer, but I'm looking forward to Torchlight II after being so disappointed with Diablo III.

I stopped playing because it's not very fun. It's too much of a gear grind, too little player skill input. I didn't put 300 hours into it, but I cleared hell twice. About halfway through I was mostly just playing because I hoped it would get better. It didn't.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.